Heathcote Williams RIP

The great man’s passing.
Amongst uncountable powerful magical acts of creation, Heathcote and Mike Lesser brought International Times back to life – Heathcote providing most of the good people, and tireless encouragement to all. He was a great man, great Anarchist, poet, playwright and all round approachable and sympathetic leader. It’s difficult to remember a time since the early nineteen seventies when he wasn’t at the very least an interesting part of me and my comrades’ lives. A man of immense heart, sympathy, intelligence and wit, missed so very very much.

23 Responses to Heathcote Williams RIP

The most generous mentor a fledgling could possibly hope to have. An awesome intelligence and such a deeply compassionate nature…The single sunbeam who drove away many shadows. Bless you, and thank you, Heathcote.

Take comfort all ye who mourn. For Heathcote’s body will disappear – a term of magic – but his spirit flame, through his work, will burn all the brighter for all the people of now; and for all the unimaginable future to come. Adios compadre of all.

Somehow this poem, translated by one of my dad’s friends, came to my mind when Mike died and again with Heath.

High Treason, a poem by Jose Emilio Pacheco, translated from the Spanish by Alistair Reid.

I do not love my country. Its abstract lustre
Is beyond my grasp.
But (although it sounds bad) I would give my life
For ten places in it, for certain people,
Seaports, pinewoods, fortresses,
A rundown city, gray, grotesque,
Various figures from its history
Mountains
(And three or four rivers).

[‘…I had a great admiration and appreciation for him, his character and his poetry.

He was a big personality. Truly, he was an eccentric, a shining example of the kind of individual anarchic humanism, which is a great tradition in English culture. He was unique, a one-off, the man who walks entirely alone; and yet is fully connected to the most civilised and rational values – even when it appears that he is acting like an irrational demolisher of them.

He was a great friend to me. We met in London in 72, and remained comrades thru the decades that followed. A wit, mime, muse to many– if Willie Blake was God’s Rake- Heathcote was his modern equivalent. I did a version of his Local Stigmatic in Chicago, directed by Gary Houston and co-player was Jim Jacobs- whose Grease is still playing worldwide. My love to Diana , China and Lily, and we will not see his like again. He was much loved.
Warren Lemingcoldchicagoco@gmail.com

I only just got this news. I’m shocked, of course. Heathcote was a great comrade in activism and writing. A real ‘human being’. I admired his grounded radicalism and learned much about the Queen. May his spirit soar – and may we pick-up on his tireless destruction of all that has no place on this Earth.